


Transience

by lauawill



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-16 04:23:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20194807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lauawill/pseuds/lauawill
Summary: Because everybody eventually writes an amnesia story. I started writing this AGES ago and finally finished it today ... but the ending had been planned from the start. I just couldn't make myself do it. Writer's block is the pits. Oh, and I'm sorry the line spacing is so weird. Ao3 and I have never been friends. We've come to an understanding in which it'll post my crap, it just won't be happy about it. What can you do, eh?





	1. Chapter 1

**Part 1**

These are things I know for certain:

  1. In rational space, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter is an irrational number.

  1. If you imagine the three stars of Orion's Belt joining in a line to create a southeastward arrow, you can locate Sirius. Northwestward, Aldebaran. 

  1. Earth's sky is never so blue as the morning after a raging thunderstorm.

  1. There is a resort on Risa where, for the right price, the staff will insist to outsiders that you are not there.

  1. When you have a dog, you have a friend for life.

  1. My mother's name is Gretchen, my sister's name is Phoebe, my father's name was Edward.

  1. My name is Kathryn Janeway, and I am Captain of a starship lost in the Delta Quadrant.

When I wake up, these are among the things I know for certain. Facts and figures, concepts and connections.

And you. I know you. When I wake up, you are sitting in a chair beside my bed, elbows on knees, head bent low. I watch you breathe, and although I know the rhythm of your breath well enough to hear the depth of your exhaustion, I do not know how I know this. Only that I know.

When I wake up, I call to you, softly. "Commander?"

You stare at me, your initial look of profound relief giving way to confusion and concern. You tilt your head to one side and I know your hair is grayer than I have ever seen it. "I'm glad you're awake," you say, and I know that these are not the first words that sprang to your lips. 

I do not know _why_ I know this. But I know.

"How long have I been out?"

You glance at a chrono on the wall. "About six hours."

"And how long have you been here?"

You smile grimly. "About six hours."

"Who is in charge of my ship, Commander?" Your jaw goes slack, but you say nothing. "Status report, Commander," I bark, and you rise slowly to stand at parade rest, your hands clasped behind your back. 

"Tuvok has the Bridge," you say. "And we're maintaining course at best speed."

Standing like that, looming over my bedside, you seem taller and broader than I know you to be. "Course heading?"

You hesitate. "The course you ordered."

"What course?" When you do not answer, I try to push myself into a sitting position. My head swims with the effort. You dart forward and try to ease me — _ease_, not _force_, you are careful and gentle with me — back into the bed. I stare at your hands wrapped around my arms. "What course, Commander?"

"I think you should —" you begin, but then a third voice enters the room.

"You should have told us she was awake, Chakotay," the voice says. "We have been waiting." The person belonging to the voice steps into view. She is tall and fair and almost unutterably beautiful, and although she is smiling at me I know that I do not know her at all. 

"Who are you?" I demand. Your hands try to settle me into the bed again. "No, stop. Let go of me, Commander." I struggle against you, and you relent just enough to let me turn and look up at the blonde again. "Who are you?"

The blonde does not answer. Another person enters the room behind her, a younger man I _do_ recognize. "Ensign," I call to him, encouraged by his friendly smile. "Where is the EMH?"

Ensign Kim grins. "The Doc has Eddie right now, but since you're awake I'm sure he'll be in soon." 

"Eddie? Who is Eddie?" I ask.

Ensign Kim's smile falters. "Eddie is your —"

"Don't, Harry," you say quickly. "Both of you, go get the Doc. Don't let anyone else in the room."

Eyes wide, Ensign Kim and the blonde woman nod. The blonde woman scurries to carry out your orders, but Ensign Kim hesitates. He forces a smile and places a hand on your shoulder. "I'll get Tom and B'Elanna for you, okay?"

"Thanks, Harry."

"No problem. And we'll send the Doc."

In an instant, you and I are alone in the room again. We stare at each other in tense and wary silence, and I know you, I know you as well as I know the names and locations of all the constellations visible in the summer sky over my childhood home.I know you. But I do not know why.

"Edward was my father's name," I whisper.

You nod. "Yes."

"My father is dead."

"Yes."

"Who is Eddie?" The sound you make in the back of your throat is profoundly sad. "Who is Eddie, Commander?"

You close your eyes and sink back into the chair at my bedside. "We should wait for the Doc."

"Why? What's going on? How did I get here?"

"Just wait for the Doc, Kathryn," you murmur.

I narrow my eyes at you. "I don't recall giving you permission to use my name, Commander."

You turn your face away from me as if I had slapped you and I know the remark has undone you just as surely as if I _had_ slapped you. My heart wants to utter words of contrition and consolation, but my mind offers none and I struggle with this feeling of both knowing and _not_ knowing you. Suddenly tired, I lie back into the bed. "I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"Because…" Again I fight to find the words. "Because I think I _should_ be sorry for that."

"But you don't know why."

"No."

You swallow hard and nod just once in acknowledgment. I want you to look at me. I want you to say my name again even though I've never given you permission to use it, I want you to take my hand. I don't know why I want these things, but I know you well enough to know I can believe you if you tell me everything will be all right and I need to hear you say it. But you stay still and silent. I feel tears fill my eyes and scrub them away so you will not turn and see them fall.

The door hisses open and closed, and I peer up at the ship's EMH, who is waving a scanner over my skull. "Doctor," I say.

He glances at you. You nod. The Doctor smiles down at me. "How are you feeling?"

"Confused." I raise a hand to the side of my head, realizing only now that I am in pain. "And my head hurts."

"There's still some intracranial swelling," the Doc says. "What's the last thing you remember?"

I stare up at the ceiling. "Falling," I say. "Did I hit my head?"

In my peripheral vision, the Doc nods. "That's right. You were still conscious when Chakotay brought you here. Do you remember that?"

"No."

You and the Doc exchange a glance. "Do you remember where you were when you fell?"

"There were…stairs. They were slick. But I was carrying…something...when I slipped. So I couldn't catch myself." I turn to look at you. "I was in Engineering. You were there. We were both checking up on Lieutenant Torres. Weren't we?"

You shake your head.

"It wasn't in Engineering?"

"No," you say softly. "Do you remember what you were carrying?"

I close my eyes and try to visualize the scene, but I can't see anything but the two of us in Engineering. "No."

"Do you know the date?"

I blink up at the Doc. "I…no. I don't think I do."

"Do you know _where _you are?"

"Sickbay." I take a quick look around the room and notice something I hadn't before: A window in the wall to my right, and beyond it a square of blue sky. A bolt of fear runs up and down my spine. "Or…a hospital?"

The doc frowns. "Mister Kim said you weren't sure who Eddie was. Is that true?"

I look from the EMH back to you, only to find you staring at me intently. "Edward was my father's name, but I don't know anyone named Eddie," I say, and you turn away from me again, but not before I see the hope in your eyes turn to despair. "And my father is dead."

You slump forward in your chair, elbows on knees, face buried in your hands.

I know you.

I know your laugh, a low, rolling chuckle that you habitually hide from all but your closest friends. I know the way you tug on your ear or rub your chin when you're nervous. I know your walk and your sigh and your voice in the night. 

"Chakotay," I plead. "Chakotay, look at me." You draw a deep breath and face me, and I know that the smile you give me is forced. "Chakotay, what's happened to me?"

"You had an accident," you say. 

"Bad?"

"Bad enough."

"Why don't I remember what happened?"

You glance up at the Doc. "Transient global amnesia," he says.

"Amnesia?" I try to sit up in again, my head spins again, and this time the EMH gently lowers me back to the mattress. "From a fall?"

"It was a bad fall," the EMH says. "You apparently made no effort to protect yourself from the impact."

I frown at him, and then at you. "Because I was trying to protect what I was carrying."

You nod and look up at the EMH. "And she complained of a migraine this morning."

The EMH harrumphs at both of us. "Why didn't you call me?"

I shrug; I have no memory of having a migraine, nor of why I would complain to you about it.

"We were going to let you know at the checkup," you say.

"Whose checkup?" I ask.

You and the EMH stare at each other for a long moment. "Eddie's checkup," you finally say, and rise to pace across the room. You lean your shoulder against the window and stare blankly out into the blue sky. The EMH reassures me that my condition is surely temporary, that this particular type of amnesia can be caused by mild head trauma and exacerbated by migraines, and that my memories will gradually return over the course of the next few days. But I barely hear a word he is saying.

I can't take my eyes off of you.

I know you.

I know you deeply, intimately, thoroughly, joyfully.

_I know you._

But I do not know _how_ or _why_ or _when_ I came to know you, and I am suddenly terrified.

-End of part 1- 


	2. Chapter 2

**Interlude**

"_Can I ask you a question, off the record? If things had happened differently, and we were on the Maquis ship now instead of _Voyager_, would you have served under me?_"

"_One of the nice things about being Captain is that you can keep some things to yourself._"

_Your answering smile is tight. I can see that you are unsatisfied by my response, but it's been one hell of a day and for now it's the only answer I am willing to give._

_We turn to leave Engineering — and our new Chief Engineer — behind us. Our ship is in good hands, and I know now that while I may question your methods, I can trust your judgment, at least where our crew is concerned. It occurs to me that perhaps I should take a second look at some of your recommendations for placement of the Maquis. Maybe I dismissed several of your suggestions prematurely. _

_Our working relationship needs to improve, and fast. I am on the verge of inviting you back to my quarters for a slice of replicated pie and an informal chat, when a searing pain lances through my head. I stumble as if the stairs and deck had turned to ice beneath my feet. A blinding light hits me full in the face and as quickly as it came, the pain recedes. I stare at the light, dumbfounded._

_That light shouldn't be there._

_I feel your hand grasp the back of my uniform. You steady me in the face of that light. Intellectually I know I should be alarmed by the light's very presence, but instead I find myself relishing its warmth, basking in its dazzling glow. I want to turn and look at you but I cannot tear my eyes from the light. "What's happening?" I ask._

_Your voice answers, but it has an echo that, like the light itself, shouldn't be there. It is both your voice and _not _your voice, and I do not know if your words emanate from your throat or from inside my head._

_"You're getting closer, Kathryn," you say._

_"Closer to what?"_

_"To that which you seek. You must keep trying."_

_The light intensifies and I move toward it, guided by your hand at my back._

**Part 2**

The next time I wake up, these are the things I know for certain:

  1. You have not left my side since the Doc sedated me prior to the myriad brain scans he wanted to perform. Others have come and gone — many others, some I know, some I do not — but you have stayed.

  1. The song you are singing is known to me. Its lilting melody falls easily on my ears, its rhythm sends a familiar tingle to my fingertips, but I do not know the words or the language. I know that I once knew these things, but I do not know now.

  1. Your voice is different when raised in song. Higher, happier. I know this deep in my bones, although I do not know why.

  1. I do not know the child's voice that intertwines with yours. 

  1. You are an outstanding father.

When I wake up the second time, these are the things that I know.

I open my eyes. The room has changed. The square of blue sky beyond the window has given way to a red-gold sunset and I know we are on a planet, although I do not know which one.

You have moved your chair to a far corner of the room. There is a child seated on your lap. The child has its — her — back to me, and I watch the two of you play for a time. The song has elaborate hand motions that accompany the words. I think it must be about a baby bird, because the two of you make fluttering motions with your fingertips that soon give way to wild flaps as the song's tempo and volume increase. Your voices rise to a gleeful, shared crescendo, and you both laugh. The girl wraps her arms around your neck and you hug her tight, your eyes closed, your face pressed against her wavy brown hair.

I do not know this child.

I did not know you were a father.

The personnel record and intelligence report I read a few weeks ago in preparation for this mission did not indicate that you had surviving family apart from one sibling, a sister listed as "Missing." 

I struggle with this paradox, this certainty that you have no children and no wife juxtaposed with the knowledge that you are a kind and patient father, a warm and affectionate husband. I stare at the image before me of you holding a young child close to your broad chest, your arms wrapped around her whippet-thin body, your hands smoothing over her curls. The light from the fading sunset falls on the silver band you wear on your left ring finger. The light sends a dazzling ray onto the walls of this sterile, unfamiliar room. I'm both mesmerized by the brilliance and saddened by its significance, and I do not know why.

"You remembered all the words that time," you say to the child. "I'm proud of you."

The child claps her hands. "Again!" she exclaims.

The child begins to sing, but before she can complete the first few words of the song, you stop her. "Look," you say. "Auntie Kathryn is awake."

I turn my head on the pillow just as the child whirls around to face me.

She is beautiful. 

Her brown hair falls in ringlets to her shoulders. Her smile is wide and joyful. Her dark eyes show an intelligence and curiosity beyond her years. Her perceptive gaze, as much as the faint ridges on her forehead, marks her indelibly as the child of B'Elanna Torres. The girl scrabbles down from your lap and prances across the room to my bedside, and I fight back conflicting emotions that I cannot explain.

"You missed dinner, Auntie," she says. "But we saved you some coffee ice cream."

I force a smile. "Coffee ice cream is my favorite."

She nods. "I know. Daddy said to save you some, so I did."

"Thank you. That was kind of you." I want to ask the child her name, but I am afraid to frighten her. She seems to know me and yet I am certain I have never seen her before in my life. My eyes flick up to yours. "Your Daddy has taught you very well."

You frown and start to respond, but the door hissing open behind you distracts us all.

B'Elanna Torres enters, and I gasp. She is…changed. She is far older than I know her to be, fuller at breast and hips. She carries a second child in her arms, a sleeping child whose fists are clenched beneath his chin and I wonder with a jolt just how far back my amnesia reaches, and just how much I have forgotten. She presses an affectionate kiss to your cheek and thanks you for watching the little girl, then she turns to look at me. "Lieutenant Torres?" I say.

She smiles. "Yes. You remember me?"

"Yes." I tip my head toward the child who is now crossing the room to her mother, and the one in her arms. "But I'm not sure…"

B'Elanna nods her understanding. As you cross the room to join us, she lowers the baby so that I can see his face, so like his sister's. "This is Tobias John. He's six months old." She smiles at her daughter. "And that holy terror is Miral. Miral _Kathryn_, age four."

Again, I must force a smile to mask the tears I want to shed. "They are beautiful, Lieutenant. Congratulations." I turn to you and swallow against the lump in my throat. "And to you, Commander. You have a beautiful family."

B'Elanna draws a sharp breath and looks up at you. Your eyes are so sad that I want to rise from this bed, I want to reach out and take you in my arms, but I do not know why. "These are not my children," you say in a soft, broken voice. "B'Elanna is not my wife."

I try to reconcile your words with the warm and intimate tableau before me. I know you are a father and a husband. I _know_ this. And yet I also know that when last I spoke to you before…before the accident, you were neither of these things. You were Commander Chakotay, former Maquis Captain, former enemy to the Federation, my new First Officer and ally. 

I also struggle to understand my profound relief. Am I relieved because I have no sticky shipboard fraternization problem to worry about, or because B'Elanna Torres is not your wife?

I rub my forehead with my fingertips.

"Are you all right?" you ask. "Should I go get the Doc?"

"No. I'm all right. Just…confused."

You pour a glass of water from the pitcher on my bedside table. "Here you go, Kathryn," you say. "Don't try too hard. It'll come."

"Will it?" I ask.

You and B'Elanna both nod and smile. "Just give it time," B'Elanna says. 

The door hisses open again and Lieutenant Paris ambles through. To my astonishment, the little girl Miral sprints across the small room and flings herself into Tom's waiting arms. "Daddy," she shouts, and I cannot help but smile up at you.

You chuckle in return. "It's less shocking than it seems," you say. "They're good for each other."

"I'll take your word for that," I reply. 

Tom and B'Elanna make their goodbyes with a promise to visit "Auntie Kathryn and Uncle Chakotay" again soon and prepare their children to go home — and I somehow manage to refrain from asking exactly where "home" is for them — while I observe the organized chaos of their familial life. I miss them when they are gone. In the now-quiet room, you pull your chair back to my bedside.

"Did the EMH find anything in his scans?" I ask.

"Nothing he wasn't expecting. No sign of stroke or seizure, anyway, and nothing that would explain the amnesia beyond migraine and mild head trauma. He firmly believes your memories will return in a few days without any other intervention." You shrug. "He says you can get up, eat something, even go home if you feel up to it."

"'Home,'" I repeat. "I'm half afraid to ask exactly where my home is." I meant it to be a joke, but your expression goes blank and I instantly regret the words. "Chakotay…"

You give your head a small shake. "What's the last place you remember calling 'home'?"

"_Voyager_," I say. "My quarters. Before that, my townhouse in San Francisco."

"Where you lived alone?"

I nod and sit up in bed. "Me and my dog. She was due to have puppies. Just before we entered the Badlands, I asked Mark to…" _Mark._ Oh dear God, _Mark._

You slump forward again, elbows on knees, head bent low. 

I was engaged to Mark when we entered the Badlands. I am no longer engaged to him. I know this. I know this with terrible certainty.

Your hands are knotted together and I stare at the plain silver band you wear. Beneath the blanket, I clench my own left hand into a tight fist, not yet ready to see what I know I will see there. My heart hammers in my chest as if I had just run the Academy marathon.

"Where are we, Chakotay?" I whisper. "How much time have I lost?"

You sit back in your chair. "Tell me again about the last thing you remember."

"We were in Engineering. I was there to observe B'Elanna. You found me there and accused me of checking up on her. We talked about the crew and you asked me…you asked…" 

The sound you make is not quite a chuckle, not quite a sob. "I asked if you would serve under me."

"Yes." 

"Kathryn, how long ago was that for you?"

I frown. "Days? A week?"

You sigh and hold your hands out to me. "Feel like getting up?"

"Why?"

You nod toward the window. "You need to see something."

I reach for you, still willing myself not to look at my own hands, and you steady me as we walk to the window. A step away, I hesitate. "Are you afraid?" you ask.

"No," I reply. "Maybe…apprehensive. But not afraid."

We step together to the window.

The scene before me is one I know well: The sun setting over the grounds of Starfleet Headquarters, and beyond HQ, the Golden Gate. I know I should be astonished. Maybe I am. But I am also strangely unsurprised.

"We made it," I breathe. 

"Yes."

I drink in the glorious sight. "When?"

"Four years ago. Almost five, actually." 

I turn to stare up at you in disbelief. "And that day in Engineering?"

"Almost twelve years ago."

The shock I feel is paradoxically both profound and somehow distant, as if I lived through our homecoming and moved past it long ago. "We were out there for…for seven _years_?"

"Yes."

Seven years, and twelve years since my last coherent memory. Twelve years in which so much has surely changed. Chakotay has aged. I have aged. Mark and I are no longer engaged.

Twelve years in which B'Elanna Torres and Tom Paris married and had two children. Are there more? There must be. There must be other married couples among us, other families.

_Twelve years._

I place my hands on the windowsill and lean my forehead against the glass. Finally, heart still beating fast, I look down at my hands. A minute passes, then another. I reach back and grasp your left hand in my right and raise it to rest on the windowsill. In the fading light of the California sunset, I match the plain silver band on your hand with the one on my own.

When I can breathe again, I slide my fingers into the spaces you make for them and tug you forward until I can feel the warmth of your body at my back. "Chakotay?"

"Yes?"

"Who is Eddie?"

-End of part 2-


	3. Chapter 3

**Interlude**

_The house is falling down around us._

_Books, rattled from their shelves by the gale-force winds rocking the shelter, fall to the floor. The jacket you left draped across a chair slides and falls in an untidy heap. This morning's breakfast dishes clatter from the countertops. _

_My research — traps, notes, PADDS, experiments, even my little electron microscope — crashes down. I gasp and try to dart from under the table, but you hold me fast, protecting me from the whirling maelstrom of debris._

_We are going to die here, you and I. The realization hits me like a phaser blast to the heart. I will never be able to replace the equipment the storm has destroyed, and we are going to die here, whether due to accident or illness or simple old age. We are going to die here._

_I couldn't save us._

_I couldn't save_ you_, and that's the part that hurts the most._

_This is my fault._

_We are only here because the day was too bright and fine to waste, and I insisted on joining your foraging party over the objections of my Chief of Security, who knew we should not be on the planet together but who probably also knew, because he knows me too well, that I wanted — needed — to get away from the ship for a while. We are only here because I dragged you away from your team and led you along the river and into a hidden nest of insects, we are only here because I needed to step away from my rank and responsibilities and while away a quiet afternoon with you, my First Officer, my best friend, my confidant and something more, something I cannot yet define._

_I will need to define who you are to me. Soon._

_We are going to die here._

_I bury my face in my hands. You give my arm an awkward pat, as if you aren't sure you should, but when I lean into you, your response is immediate. Without saying a word, you wrap yourself around me and hold me tight, here under the table you insisted on bolting to the floor of the shelter. "In case of earthquake," you said, "or tornado or…" You laughed. "Plague of locusts."_

_I smile at the memory, even as the house continues to fall down around us._

_Time passes._

_A strange silence settles over the house. You sigh behind me and I move to extricate myself from your embrace, but there is a light, a sudden blinding light, from outside the windows. I shield my eyes from the glare._

_That light shouldn't be there._

_"What is that?" I whisper._

_Your voice answers, and again it has a strange and foreign echo. _

_"Knowledge," you whisper. "Enlightenment."_

_I turn to look at you, and your expression has gone beatific. "I don't understand."_

_You smile and I find myself wanting to trust you. You would never hurt me._

_Would you?_

_You lean down to place a tender kiss on my forehead. "You're so close, Kathryn," you whisper. "So close to the illumination you seek."_

_"Illumination," I murmur, and turn back to the light._

_The brilliance intensifies and I stretch my hands toward it. I feel a pleasant warmth radiating from the light, which has now moved through the broken window and seems to radiate from somewhere inside this house._

_You give me a gentle nudge and we both rise to our feet. Your hands at my waist steady me. "It's all right," you whisper in a soothing voice that is and is not yours. "No harm will come to you here."_

_I trust you. Above all others, I trust you._

_I raise my chin and take another step toward the light._

**Part 3**

When I wake up, these are the things I know for certain.

  1. We did not die on that planet. We did not die...but we never left it behind us. Not completely. It haunted us both for years, but now it is a pleasant, wistful memory we both return to often.

  1. This house on Lake Street in the town of Moss Beach – 35 kilometers from Starfleet but just steps away from the ocean – was an unusual choice for us. But I do not know exactly how we wound up here, or why.

  1. Every morning, weather permitting, you run the bluff trails down to the ocean and south along the water. You often run barefoot, and when you return I complain halfheartedly about the sand you drag into the shower.

  1. In the evening, when we are both home, we make a point of walking the trails together. We discuss the details of our days, we celebrate the little victories and surprises, and work through the challenges the way we always have on _Voyager_. But now we do it hand-in-hand.

  1. You used to carry Eddie in a sling when we walked. Now you carry him in a backpack, or we push him along in a stroller B’Elanna and I modified to handle the uneven terrain of the trails. Soon he will be able to walk the trails himself, and we will mark his growth against the changing of the seasons around us.

  1. Eddie is our son. I know this as soon as I see his cheerful dark eyes and chubby cheeks with their dusting of freckles. I know this when you carry him into my hospital room and he reaches for me. I know this when you tell me his full name – Edward Ikan Janeway – and settle him in my arms. I know this deep in my soul even though I know I have never been pregnant. I accepted him immediately – effortlessly – and I know he is our son, but how I wish I could remember his infancy, his birth, the occasion of his making.

When I wake up, these are the things that I know. I embrace each and every detail with covetous glee. This is who we are, whether I can fully remember us or not.

We are a family, you and I and Eddie. Edward Ikan Janeway.

The house is quiet when I wake up, and the room still dark. I can hear birds beginning to awaken in the trees outside the window, inspired by a faraway sunrise. I am alone in the big bed. You insisted on sleeping in the guest bedroom after we fed and bathed Eddie together last night, my first night in this beautiful home that I know intimately – the sand paintings, the holoimages, the hundreds-year-old quilt on our bed – but cannot remember.

I sit up against a headboard I know you must have built for us, just as you did back on that long-ago planet.

I remember that planet. When I close my eyes I can conjure it in perfect detail. I can see the path my feet made in the grass from the house to the bathtub you built for me. I can smell the rich earth we turned over when we planted the Talaxian tomato seeds. I can taste the delicious meals you made for me and the cinnamon tea I mistook for my coffee one morning. I can even hear the chittering monkey. It is as fresh in my memory as if it had happened only yesterday.

Just as fresh are all the things that happened in between that day in Engineering and the day we arrived at New Earth, and I realize with a start that a massive hole in my memories has suddenly been filled.

I dart from the bed, wrap a robe around me that can only be yours – besides being three sizes too big it _smells_ like you, even though I’m sure I’ve never sniffed you this closely before – and rush from the room to find you. My feet take me automatically to the guest room as if they’ve been there a thousand times before, but the bed is empty. “Chakotay?” I call quietly, and hurry back to the other bedroom. The _nursery_.

And there you are. You are seated in an oak rocking chair that I both do and do not remember you making a year and a half ago, when we began to plan for Eddie’s arrival. You are wearing striped pajama pants and a threadbare T-shirt. When I rush through the door you raise a finger to your lips in a shushing gesture.

Eddie is asleep in the crook of your left elbow. I stand transfixed, watching you rock our son back to sleep in the soft pre-dawn light.

You are…unutterably handsome to me. And I wish, oh _how_ I wish, I could remember the moment I first allowed myself to acknowledge the thought that had been hovering in the back of my mind from the moment I first met you twelve long years ago.

You rise and settle Eddie back in his crib and cover him with a blue blanket. You pause there at the side of his crib, and after a moment of hesitation I join you. Together we look down on our sleeping son. “He’s beautiful,” I whisper.

You grin. “He is.”

“I wish I could remember…”

“You will.” You take my hand and lead me from the room. “Why are you up so early, Kathryn? The Doc told you to rest.”

I squeeze your hand. “I remember more,” I say. “When I woke up I thought of…of New Earth.”

Your steps falter on the hardwood floor as if you are surprised. I glance up at you and see that you are pleased by the revelation, and we continue on toward the kitchen. “That’s good,” you say with a smile. “Anything else?”

In the kitchen, I sit down at the table while you busy yourself with coffee and tea. “Everything up to that point,” I answer. “From ‘Would you have served under me?’ to the Angry Warrior.”

Your back is turned to me, but I can hear the smile in your voice. “’If I ever have any questions about mating behavior…’” you prompt.

“Apparently I knew _exactly_ where to go, given that our son is sleeping in the next room.”

You laugh quietly. “You certainly did.” You stroll to the table and hand me a cup of coffee. “It’s funny that you remember things in those terms, though.”

I frown. “What terms?”

“Terms of our relationship,” you say, “as opposed to things that happened to _Voyager_.”

I sip my coffee and search my memories. “I also remember the Vidiians, Fear, and Tom Paris’s conviction for murder. And Seska, as a matter of fact, so don’t be too pleased with yourself.”

You laugh again. “Point taken.”

“Is there anyone else I should know about?”

You reach out and brush your fingertips across my cheek. “Let’s burn those bridges when we come to them.”

“Now _I’m _scared.”

“Don’t be.” You make an expansive gesture, as if to take in the boy in the room next door, the house and the town around it, the entire planet. “And as you can see, it worked out for the best.”

I sip my coffee. “I just wish I could remember it.”

“You will.” You rise and place a kiss on the top of my head. The gesture is both shocking and completely familiar and right, as if it’s been your habit for years. Once again the paradox of both knowing this life and not knowing it at all takes my breath away.

You take your empty teacup to the sink. “Is it too early for breakfast?” you ask.

“I could eat.”

“Cheese and mushroom omelets and toast?”

“More coffee?”

“That’s a given, Kathryn.”

Just as you did on New Earth, you whistle to yourself while you putter in the kitchen. It’s a comforting sound, and I find myself humming along with the familiar tune as I rise and wander out into the living room.

I take the time to explore the details of the house that I overlooked last night. There’s a crocheted throw over the back of the sofa that could only have been a gift from my mother, and a painting above the fireplace that bears Phobe’s initials. The holoimages on the walls are both familiar and unfamiliar to me: Tom and B’Elanna’s wedding, which I clearly performed but cannot remember; you and I at a luau that must have been on the ship but after New Earth; Harry Kim in a tuxedo clutching a clarinet in front of the Lincoln Center in New York.

A promotion ceremony in which I am flanked by you and my mother as Owen Paris affixes Admiral’s rank to my collar.

You in front of a classroom of eager cadets.

The two of us in dress uniforms, each with a glass of champagne.

The two of us in civilian clothes, you with a proud smile, me with a prodigious belly.

Me in a hospital bed cradling a newborn while you hover nearby with tears on your cheeks.

I wish I could remember…

From the house’s expansive front windows, I can see out to the ocean. If I concentrate, I think I can recall seeing this house for the first time, and knowing that we could raise a family here.

“How did we come to be here?” I wonder aloud.

“What’s that?”

“This house,” I call back to you. “Why here? Not that I don’t love it. I do love it. I just wonder…”

“Why so far from Starfleet?”

“Yes. Since we both work there.”

You bring two plates to the table, and I notice a faint blush crossing your cheeks. “I’m not sure how much I should tell you about it.”

“Chakotay.”

You squirm in your chair. “Maybe it’s better if you remember on your own.”

I fix you with a glare, and you chuckle. “Fine. I’ll give you the short version.” You turn and gesture to a very small holo on the wall behind you, one I hadn’t noticed before. “Does that look familiar?”

I squint at the image of a massive stone building with dormer windows across the front, surrounded by scrub brush and sandy pathways. There’s a sign in front of the building. “Seal Cove Inn?” I read aloud.

You nod and munch on your toast.

“Well?” I prompt.

“That’s about two klicks from here.”

“So?”

“So…we stayed there once. Four years ago. Almost five.”

With a forkful of omelet halfway to my lips, I stop and stare at you.

The memories wash over me like a tidal wave: The formal dinner, the dancing, the heated glances across the crowded ballroom. The fierce argument. The sudden resolution. The groundcar we “borrowed” from Owen Paris and didn’t return for three days.

The blonde who arrived on your arm, but who decidedly did not leave with you that night.

I slam the fork back to my plate.

“Tell me about Seven,” I order, and you lean back in your chair and laugh. “What’s so damn funny?”

You shake your head at me and tuck back into your breakfast. “Burning bridges,” you say. “Didn’t think we’d get to it this soon.”

-End of Part 3-


	4. Chapter 4

**Interlude**

_The holographic fire snaps and flickers and sends shadows across your face. You are troubled. I search my feelings and realize that I’m still angry, even after everything that’s happened. I feel more personally betrayed than I should, and it may be a long time before I get over it. The tension that sent me here – and sent you here to find me – hangs between us. “How is our passenger?”_

_“The Doctor says she's stabilizing. Her human cells are starting to regenerate.”_

_“I wonder what's left under all that Borg technology,” I muse aloud. “If she can ever become human again.”_

_Your eyes widen slightly in disbelief. “You plan to keep her on board.” It’s not a question, not quite, and I realize this is something you’d thought about. Maybe feared._

_But it all seems very clear, very equitable to me. “We pulled the plug,” I reply, willing you to see the undeniable fairness of it. “We're responsible for what happens to her now.”_

_“She was assimilated at a very young age,” you caution. “The Collective's all she knows. She might not want to stay.” _

_I’m reminded of a conversation from a very long time ago, one in which I feared that our little band of lost souls might want to leave our journey forever, and you reassured me that no matter what might happen, no matter who left the ship, we’d make it. _

_I shake the memory away. “I think she might,” I say. “We have something the Borg could never offer: Friendship.” _

_You hesitate for a fraction of a second before taking the opening I’ve given you. “I want you to know,” you say, your voice steady, your eyes sincere, “that disobeying your orders was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do.”_

_I nod. We are at odds today, but tomorrow, we must return to duty as friends. Healing must start here. “I understand. And I respect the decision you made, even though I disagree with it. What's important is that in the end we got through this, together. I don't ever want that to change.” _

_“Agreed.” _

_I rise from the table, the old-fashioned journal left behind. “Good. Well, I think it's time we get back to our bridge.”_

_“No argument there.”_

_Together but still so far apart, we move to leave the Holodeck. I call for the exit, but instead a blinding light appears. This time, I nod in recognition. “Almost there?” I ask._

_Your voice comes back to me with that curious echo. “Almost there, Kathryn.”_

_“What will I find this time?”_

_“Possibility,” you say. “Knowledge, illumination, enlightenment. And possibility.” I feel your hand brush the small of my back in gentle, subtle encouragement._

_I trust you. Even after all of this, I still trust you. You won’t hurt me. I know this with utter certainty, despite what we’ve just been through._

_I take a decisive step into the light._

**Part 4**

When I wake up, this is the only thing I know for certain:

The Delta Quadrant didn’t break us.

We survived against all odds and all the many circumstances that conspired to tear us apart. We arrived home estranged, yes, but not broken, and not so far apart as we had once feared.

This life is proof of it. This house full of memories and laughter and good times yet to come.

When I wake up, you are kneeling beside the sofa where I’ve been napping away the morning. “Hey,” you smile. “Feeling better, Sleepyhead?”

I start to sit up and you reach to steady me. “I am. Much better, actually.” I place my hand on your cheek. “I remember.”

Your eyes light up. “How much?”

I look inward and find, to my delight, that there are no blank spots in my memory anymore. “Everything,” I reply, and lean forward just enough to kiss your beautiful mouth. Your eyes widen in shock for just an instant, then you throw yourself into the kiss with gusto.

The overwhelming wonder of this moment catches me by surprise, and I am powerless to stop myself from being pulled into your arms and held against your broad chest. A laugh bubbles up from somewhere deep inside me.

You pull away from our embrace. “What is it, Kathryn?”

I shake my head, almost unable to find the words. “All of this. It’s all so … incredible and new.”

You frown. “New? But I though you said –”

“That I remember? I do. I remember performing a wedding service for Tom and B’Elanna and making you go back into fluidic space and where you keep your cider stash and …” I brush my lips across yours again. “And I remember the homecoming party and our wedding back home. I remember we were going to take Eddie in for his one-year checkup yesterday when I slipped on the ice and hit my head. And today is … today is …” I leap up from the couch and practically vault over you in my haste. “It’s Eddie’s birthday party today! Everybody will be here soon! We have to get ready!”

Laughing, you rise from the floor. “They won’t be here for hours, Kathryn. The food’s being catered, the cake and ice cream are in stasis, and we’ve spent the last week cleaning the place.” You cross the room to me, a mischievous grin lighting up your whole face. “Or don’t you _remember_?”

By the time you wrap your arms around me, I am grinning, too. “Oh, I _remember_ plenty, Mister. Like Seal Cove Inn. I have some very particular memories of that place all of a sudden.”

In an instant you have me backed against the wall. “Oh, really?”

“Really. And if I _remember_ right, you put Eddie down for his nap about the time I curled up on the sofa. Which means we’ve got … what? Maybe an hour left before our son wakes up?”

“’Our son,’” you repeat. “This time yesterday I wasn’t sure I’d hear those words from you ever again.”

I take your dear face in my hands. “I remember, Chakotay,” I say. “I remembered you from the start. I knew you even though I didn’t know why or how. It was you who anchored me to this life. _Our_ life. With our son, who loves bananas and beets but hates green beans, our son who has your eyes and my freckles, our son whose first word wasn’t ‘Mama’ or ‘Dada’ but ‘Tom,’ much to our chagrin.”

Your laugh rolls through me. “I will never forgive him for that,” you say.

“Which one? Tom or Eddie?”

“Both of them.” You lean down to kiss me long and hard. “Tom _and _our son.”

“Our son.” You press me more firmly into the wall and I gasp. “We’ve got an hour. Want to make another one?”

Stifling laughter, we tiptoe past Eddie’s room and leap headlong into our bed.

-End of Part 4-


	5. Chapter 5

**Interlude**

_The images go by almost too fast to comprehend. Kashyk. Rudy Ransom. The Borg. Species 8472. Chaotica. Jaffen. The Hirogen. Losing Kes. Losing Joe Carey. The years flash by in an overwhelming whirl. _

_Tuvok’s illness._

_A wedding ceremony I never wanted to perform._

_More deaths._

_One death._

_The pain in your eyes, and the betrayal when I turned away._

_Harsh words, upended lives, tragedy. So much tragedy, so little triumph. Memories I’ve tried to repress lest they overcome me for good._

_A simple grave under a single tree at the top of a lonely hill._

_And then more images, ones I’m unable to process._

_A colony on a distant, so verdant planet. Another _Voyager_, another crew. Older, but still unmistakably my crew. _My_ crew … with families. Children. A young man with a long, dark braid and laughing eyes and wisdom far beyond his years._

_A quadrant ravaged by war, a disturbance in time so great and so far reaching it can never be undone. A ship too smashed to fly, escape pods that never found a home. A silver pocketwatch on a chain._

_You, left behind on a planet with a woman who knows you more deeply than I ever could._

_A big house in Bloomington full of children and dogs and handmade treasures. Frogs in a pond, irresistible to curious kids. Muddy footprints on a kitchen floor. A telescope on a tripod._

_A pair of antique chairs._

_Earth overrun with Borg._

_A canoe, a tent, a sunset on a beach. The Perseid Meteor shower and a proposal._

_Glimpses of other universes, dozens of them, hundreds of them. Infinite permutations of infinite, other lifetimes._

_Your voice, then, with that curious echo. “Do you understand now, Kathryn? Do you see?”_

_I look around for you but this time I can’t find you. “It’s so overwhelming. So many lives, so many different ways to end our story …” My head is whirling with everything I’ve just seen … but then it comes to me. The weight of certainty nearly sends me to my knees. “Possibility. Knowledge, illumination, enlightenment. And _possibility_.”_

_And suddenly you are there. Young, handsome, free of the bitterness that aged you, standing beside me and smiling._

_“Are you ready?”_

_“I’m ready. And I have plans to make.”_

_I square my shoulders. You offer your arm and together we walk out of the light._

**Part 5**

I am awake, and I know nothing.

The brightness of the room is blinding, and I stumble. A pair of gentle hands catches me and lowers me to a bench. A glass of water is pressed into my hand. I drink greedily, eyes narrowed against the light.

“Are you all right?” A soft voice, a gentle voice, but not _your_ voice. For an instant I am overcome with disappointment.

“I’m a little overwhelmed.”

“That’s to be expected.

“Does the feeling pass?”

“In time, and with contemplation.”

“’Time.’” I open my eyes and stare at the object on the pedestal before me. “That’s ironic, isn’t it?”

I hear a soft chuckle. “I suppose it is.” A shuffle of robes, and the adept, a tall, broad man with soft, dark eyes, sits down on the bench beside me. “The Prophets sometimes do have a sense of humor.”

My eyes adjust and I realize it’s darker in the Temple of Iponu than I thought. The light must have been part of my vision. I finish the water and set the glass aside. “Is it permitted to share my vision with you?”

“If that is your choice. But I must warn you: I can only help you interpret what you saw. I can’t explain it.”

I smile. The urge to place my hand against the young Bajoran’s cheek is almost overwhelming. “You remind me of someone,” I say.

“Someone you saw in your vision?”

“Yes.”

“Someone you lost.”

“Yes. Recently. And also … a long time ago.”

The adept glances at the object in the center of the room. “You had hoped to go back to him.”

I blink back sudden tears. “I did go back to him. But not in the way that I expected.”

The adept places his hands over mine. The sight of our hands twined together, his broad and unlined, mine pale and gnarled, makes me wistful for everything I’ve lost. “The Orb of Time is powerful,” he says.

“And all-knowing?”

He quirks an eyebrow at me. “Some would say.”

“But you would say …?”

He squeezes my hands. “I would say the Orb shows the seeker what she needs to see, if not exactly in the way she wants to see it.”

I can’t help but snicker. “Oh, you _do_ remind me of him.”

He smiles. “I’m glad.”

We sit together without words for a long moment. The silence of the Temple wraps around me. I can still feel you in my arms, I can hear your voice, I can taste your kiss, even as the vision is fading from my grasp.

“Was it real?” I ask, my voice a whisper in the stillness. The scientist in me has done her research; I know exactly what the Orb is capable of doing. If I were to scan this room for chroniton particles, I know exactly what I would find. But in this place, in this moment, the scientist in me is silent. I am drifting, dazzled by the life I’ve just lived, dazed at the paradox of solidity and transience. “Was _any_ of it real?”

“Was it real to you?”

_Our son. Our son_. “Very.”

“Then perhaps you have found what you sought, Admiral.”

“Perhaps I have.” I rise from the bench, my back and knees protesting with every move. The adept places his hand at the small of my back and ushers me from the room. The kind gesture, so long absent, brings fresh tears to my eyes … and with them, a fresh resolve. “Perhaps I have.”

_I have plans to make_.

-End-


End file.
